The Feast of Dead Saints
by Fishcake-kun
Summary: Come, come and see this world of ours. Taste of our rivers and taste of our dark dreams—Hades welcomes all to The Feast of Dead Saints. subtle!Noctis/Lightning AU


Title: _The Feast of Dead Saints_

Summary: _Come, come and see this world of ours. Taste of our rivers and taste of our dark dreams—Hades welcomes all to The Feast of Dead Saints._

Hades lay in tattered beauty around her.

The hall of the dead and banquet for the dreamers—the dreamers were long gone and the dead long laid to rest but Hades blistering beauty still laid scars on all who stepped in its haunting halls. Rocks and bare dirt lay underneath her feet—a crusty, dark chill that spoke of rust and tears.

And in its wake laid five rivers.

Acheron—of sorrow and silky, deadly rapture in its unending, haunting chills that called to her very soul.

Phlegethon—leaving fire in its searing wake and ripping all who drank of it open and torn. It burned your soul in hopes of leaving a phoenix rising from the velvet ashes in the making. Drink of this and drink of flames.

Styx—raging hate that consumed all who tasted its waters and killed those who did not survive the insanity they drank into their souls. Madness, they whispered, only the mad would drink of the Styx's rapturous waters and still be sane. Nonsense and all sense. It allowed only the best to leave scarred—never to die.

Cocytus—the fourth and most mysterious of them all. Lamentation lay in its still waters—and still waters ran deep. Memories lay in its companion—Mnemosyne—and those who drank of these twins never forgot a single words, a single action. To never forget was its price—but those who drank of its waters often lost their sanity as well—unable to keep with all the sorrows that came with its price.

Lethe—to forget. Sweet, tempting oblivion that shattered all who sipped its swirling waters. To lay to rest in its pond was to cleanse your soul, to wash all sins off. A lovely morsel of these waters let all who touched it as empty as the day it was born—but the price was high—too high to ever be worthy.

To drink of the Lethe was to drink of Death.

Drink to forget and to forget all pain, all joy, and all sadness.

To drink was to lose your soul.

She gulped but walked down and onto the muddy banks of mourning Acheron. The foggy waters trembled underneath her hands as she shifted it to her still lips.

And so she drank.

She tasted of sorrow, of its silken death and dangerous love. She felt it caressing her soul with a musician's fingers as it tweaked and tuned. Love accepted and love denied. At that moment, at that very second, she tasted of sadness and all that lay within its steep depths.

The girl lay on her side—arms trembling and legs numb as slick sorrow laid its hands over her body—tempting with the sweet promise of sweet demise and a quick end. Seconds, hours, days could've passed while her body lay to waste on Acheron's muddy banks of deep grief.

Her eyes twitched, her mouth opened—arms cold and fingers crusted with dried mud, she pulled her body up and slowly—oh so very slowly—let out three rough tears out of her dry eyes.

They plopped down and in their wake—they let a shatter of dreams and three fragments of her soul fall down alongside with it. She pulled herself up—taking a hand to her hair and putting her lips to Acheron's sighing waters—she laid a single kiss on its trembling waters.

Walking to the frail bridge that lay dried of all colors, she walked across its creaking boards and across the moaning waters of Acheron below it.

Phlegethon burned before her, its rushing waters that dried in the air as oxygen hit pure liquid flames. Already, she felt blisters opening on her palms, eyes going dry, and clothes sticking close to her wet—already burning—body. Running to its rusty shores, her cupped a hand into Phlegethon's waters and cried out when flames licked her hand. Lifting the waters to her lips, the girl drank down its searing burn and woeful flickers of flames.

She felt as if her lungs were shriveling up within her.

It burned, burned, burned inside of her—innards drying up, stomach curling on itself—pain ruptured all over her body. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream as the air around her was suddenly cut off. Nails curling and eyes unseeing—she dies a quiet, burning death. It is days before she wakes up once more—that girl that died and died—she has been reborn—free of weaknesses and fear. She sits up with quiet grace that speaks of silent death. Her eyes are white—the irises dilated. She is reborn. She is resurrected.

She is phoenix reborn in death's fiery, enflaming grasps.

So she walks—slowly, ever so slowly—to the end of Phlegethon's wake—away from licking flames—for she can no longer feel them, not now—not when she has already died and died in its choking hug around her soul. So the girl walks softly to the rotting, wooden boat at Phlegethon's banks and flips it over. She grasps the splintering row and pushes off from the burning, searing lakes around her. She feels neither flames nor death as she fast approaches Styx's domain.

She feels the sign—and warning before she sees it.

"_You have survived sorrow and flames—but hate is neither and both. Taste of my waters—and taste of what no mortal shall ever understand."_

It resounded in her soul—that warning. But the girl continued on, unbidden, and before long, walked onto Styx's black sands.

The sand sifted between her toes and wiggled into areas that itched relentlessly, but she paid no heed to those minor pains. She took in the painful sight before her. Styx's dreadful waters lay shivering before—similar to Acheron's trembling ponds yet, resembling Phlegethon's searing rushes. She dipped a hand into one of Styx's many puddles and felt ice encasing her fingers before the sting shattered all feeling in it. Ripping it out of the water with only a mere mouthful, she dipped her head and sucked all of the black, rippling water before anymore could be wasted.

For a moment, all was calm.

Rage hit her—knocking her into the black sands surrounding the flesh of her body and encasing her in all its might. Rage shattered her legs and left them numb. It grabbed her lungs and forced her to let out several unending screams, shrieks, and unholy screeches. Rage flung her arms to her head and made her pull her hair until the roots gave. Rages made her bulge her eyes out and scratch scars onto her body.

Rage made her hate.

And so she lay there—screaming, screaming, screaming.

She screamed until there had been no more left of her lungs, she had kicked and flung her arms until they shattered and left her bones to rot within her skin. She lay there—dead and undead.

Until her body healed, a slow, meticulous progress.

She lay there and felt her bones shift, felt her lungs moisten again once more and felt her mind find deep, calm sanity once more. The girl drew away from emotion's deep entanglement of her soul and in return, gave up another few portions of her soul.

She didn't know she had moved until she lay on her knees before the mixture ponds of Cocytus and Mnemosyne. She felt nothing as her arms creaked to life around her and felt only calm, sweet sanity surround her. Bringing her hands—she hadn't noticed her arms and hands move—the girl parted her lips to taste of lament and memories.

It was short—mere moments compared to the others but had done its job all the same. In return for another chunk of her soul—she had so little left now—the girl commandeered unerring memory and a fiery handle over her soul's lamentation of bespoken control and command.

One left.

One last sorrow to face.

Picking up her face, the girl's ethereal beauty flickered to life—eyelashes fluttering to life, hands and fingers curling and uncurling—legs cracking as she lifted her body to life once more. Taking a thin, shallow breath—the girl breathed to life once more.

And so she walked—very slowly, silently—and slithered across the thing, soggy land connecting of lament and memory—and sweet oblivion lying before her.

No marks marked this no-man's land and Lethe's whispery waters laughed at her. Daring at her to come—come and taste of death.

And she did—she dipped both her hands into Lethe's silky, deadly waters and plunged her entire face into the shifting liquid.

Opening her eyes, she looked.

She saw bodies—hundreds upon hundreds lay still and motionless atop and around one another. And one by one, each turned unseeing, dead eyes to her plunged face. They drifted towards her and she knew, without a single, misleading doubt—they had been the ones who drank of Lethe's water and had been tricked into letting the notion of a clean slate enticing them to sink themselves into her quiet arms of death. They had been dead for so long—so very, very long. Faces white and pale, they reached towards her.

They never found flesh.

For the girl had ripped her face out of the water and sucked in many gulps of Lethe's death. She tasted of oblivion—sweet demise and thought of giving in.

She gave in.

Letting her body sink into Lethe's awaiting, patient grasp, she spread out her arms eagle-spread and sighed into the water. And in that moment, Persephone opened her glorious eyes and saw Hades peering down before her.

Lightning reached a hand through the murky waters and touched Noctis' face. He leaned into her touch and murmured something indecipherable. Looking down at her with unfathomable orbs, he leaned to only brush the tip of his nose against her pale, cool cheek. Letting a small smile carve itself onto her face, she gave into slow, soft death.

White hands latched around her and with one last look at her beloved's face, Lightning let herself drift into Lethe's patient, silent grasp of death encircling her soul, dreams, and hopes.

She would go down with her humanity.

And when she once again woke, she would be resurrected as Queen of the Dead.

Acheron—to allow her to feel the sorrow of dead souls and feel no pity for their ends and sobbing cries.

Phlegethon—to burn and sear all weaknesses from her soul, she was to be unconquerable if she were to be Hades' Queen.

Styx—to rip out of her soul her mortal emotions and replace them with a queen's placid mind.

Cocytus and Mnemosyne—to never forget a single word. Souls lied and she would be witness to their path to demise and Hades judgment.

Lethe—to be reborn as a true Queen for this realm of the dead.

Giving one last tug on Noctis' sleeve, Lightning let gave herself to the Lethe to be reborn once more.


End file.
